Controlicz - Easy Domoticz to Alexa Integration Topic is solved

[garrywma]

Hi All

Nick AKA Madgeni kindly appeared on our TheDIgitalLifestyle Show this week to talk about Controlicz and what went into it. A very interesting listen for anyone interested in Controlicz, Domoticz or just voice control in general.

https://thedigitallifestyle.com/w/index ... ontrolicz/

We are very grateful to Nick for taking the time out of what must be an incredibly busy schedule.

[RvdB]

Hai Madgeni,
has something changed? My nest thermostat is now a light (description : thermostat, type : light) in Alexa, and doesnt support setting the temperature anymore. (removing and redetecting didn't help).

Can you try now?

Whatever you did fixed it; they now show up as thermostats and accept setting the temperature, thanks.

[kostask]

Thanks Madgeni now all back to normal

[Madgeni]

Hi All

Nick AKA Madgeni kindly appeared on our TheDIgitalLifestyle Show this week to talk about Controlicz and what went into it. A very interesting listen for anyone interested in Controlicz, Domoticz or just voice control in general.

https://thedigitallifestyle.com/w/index ... ontrolicz/

We are very grateful to Nick for taking the time out of what must be an incredibly busy schedule.

Thanks Garry, it was a pleasure to talk to you

[Madgeni]

French is now live

[Madgeni]

Just another gentle reminder that if you're using Controlicz for business, that's great, but stick a few $, £, or € in the tip jar please

[michaldobrotka]

Hi Guys, I know that it’s not a Controlicz Problem but:
2 days ago my Echo dot restarted while I was watching TV - looked like a Software upgrade.
I tried to turn off the TV with voice command as usual, and echo just turned blue and beeped twice and didn’t execute the command. None of command - devices is working (switches, temperatures), but responds on questions are working well.
Second Echo that is in my bedroom works fine. Even Android Alexa app is working - switching smart home devices connected via Controlics as a charm.
Did someone have this problem?
Thanks

[Velly]

Bonjour Madgeni
mais putain! -10 mins ago they blocked ip 35.176.67.167 in Russia ("Telegramgate")..
Everybody sucks.. (in fact only in MotherLand ))

[Madgeni]

o_0

[julianmclean]

Hi Madgeni - I noticed here:

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/377 ... mazon-echo

...and referencing here:

https://developer.amazon.com/docs/custo ... ody-syntax

...that the Alexa service may now expose the individual device ID from which a request has come.

I’m thinking this could be a useful feature for Controlicz/Domoticz as you could configure which device in which RoomPlan and get extra context.

In my particular/selfish case, I use my Sonos for voice feedback and it would be great to be able to direct the feedback from an Alexa routine to a particular Sonos device, based on the input Echo device.

Not sure exactly how this would work, but perhaps by linking each device to an individual set of Domoticz credentials and then using these credentials in dzVents scripts (if available?) to derive room context.

[Madgeni]

Hi - i've always had the opportunity to inject that custom info - but can you explain that use case again, i don't quite follow

[julianmclean]

I'll try to explain with a couple of examples:

1) When I say "Alexa, Night Night", it triggers a routine that triggers a Domoticz switch update (via Controlicz). This switch is effectively a command that triggers a few things via a dzVents script, such as switching all the lights/TVs in the house off, but also giving me feedback about the wake-up alarms set for tomorrow (alarms on Sonos so pulled via SoCo python library) - e.g. "Bedroom alarm is set for 07:00 tomorrow). As there is no way (AFAIK) to get the Echo to give custom feedback to the routine, I route this verbal feedback to the Bedroom Sonos (this time using TTS from node-sonos-http-api). For this use case, I can generally assume that we'll trigger this routine from the bedroom echo, and so the sonos response is hard-wired to the bedroom speaker.

However...

2) When I say "Alexa, where's <my wife's name>", it triggers a routine->controlicz->domoticz switch again. This time, the associated dzVents script builds a picture of where my wife is (using felabcli's Life360 Domoticz plugin; https://github.com/febalci/DomoticzLife360), which I want read back to me. Again, I route this to Sonos however I could say this command from any room in the house, and I want the answer to play back on the relevant Sonos device in that room.

Various other use cases but I haven't tried to implement them all yet as I cannot rely on getting the feedback to the right speaker!

If we ever get custom responses or direct speech control on Alexa then my problem would be resolved of course, but for now being able to relate specific Echo devices to Sonos speakers (or via Domoticz RoomPlans) would give a lot more control

[Madgeni]

Ok, i understand - you want to know Alexa device you use to make the request, then somehow route that to a local speaker?
So currently the Smart Home Skill API from Amazon doesn't supply the deviceID - it's been requested several times.

Once it's done, then I could look into it, but i'd still need someway of routing it correctly back to you

[julianmclean]

Ah ok, so those links I found were about regular skills, not smart home skills? Guess I’ll have to go with a suite of ceiling PIRs to manage presence at individual room level, and decipher from there!

[heggink]

Hey Nick,
I haven't kept up with this thread for a while so apologies if this has been asked recently: you mentioned that Amazon was introducing push notifications for the echo devices. Any update on that? I would love to be able to get domoticz to make announcements on the echo dot. I noticed that there is a way to do that with the Google Home devices but I just happen to have an echo dot .
Cheers,
H

[Madgeni]

Hey
They're coming - I was added to the beta, but it isn't really ready. They need to be able to provide a means of deciding which devices you will receive notifications for, and more importantly, i'll have to start building out a platform for streaming that data to them
It's WIP on my side, as it will come.
Google Home doesn't do it for Smart Home either (yet)

[heggink]

re Google Home: true. I got mixed up with sending a message to chromecast: viewtopic.php?f=69&t=22610&p=175302&hil ... le#p175302

I would LOVE to be able to send messages to the echo speaker .

H

[Madgeni]

Hi all - the new Controlicz site is now live. The main addition is that it will now show your devices on your profile, importantly, it will tell you how Google/Alexa will see them.
More features to come - feedback welcome (and yes I know the Test is still not giving feedback!)

[lshield]

Hi all - the new Controlicz site is now live. The main addition is that it will now show your devices on your profile, importantly, it will tell you how Google/Alexa will see them.
More features to come - feedback welcome (and yes I know the Test is still not giving feedback!)

Hey Madgeni, everything was working great for me but at some point today, nothing is showing up any more. As far as I can tell, nothing changed on my end. I'm not sure what I should do to troubleshoot anything other than the "test connection".

[Madgeni]

Hi - can you try again? I was making some backend changes, which may have affected service for period of time